Beginning in 1916, logging became a focus for the community. Shingle mills and later small sawmills provided local employment opportunities for some residents. Others supplemented incomes cutting cordwood or working in the hop and logging industries in the Valley.
By the mid 1930s, a second school, on Huston Road, and a community hall, on Ryder Lake Road, provided additional ingredients to create the sense of community that still characterizes Ryder Lake today.
Jack Woodroff, a Ryder Lake resident, remembered the 1930s in an earlier interview; "We had everything we wished, outside of money. We had no money. We had our own chickens, cows, milk, cream, cheese, butter and vegetables. It was all canned. We had our own meat, we had everything we wished as far as eating and we never had a hungry day in all the whole time." (Chilliwack Archives, Add. MSS. 422).
The name, Ryder Lake, commemorating early resident John Ferris Ryder, was chosen in 1925 with the arrival of the first post office. The Lake, that can be glimpsed through trees off Ryder Lake Road, was located on land originally owned by Ryder.
The Parson's Hill school, 1911. P2148.
Gene Voight standing on No. 4 Road (now called Haley Road) Ryder Lake, 1918. P2189.
Ryder Lake namesake Mr. John Ryder (1832-1916) on his white horse ca. 1890's. P353
The former site of Mitchell's store, which operated in Ryder Lake from 1937 to the 1950s. Ron Denman photo, 1999.